Immigrants Turn to Farm Work Amid Building Bust

Growers Regain A Source of Labor; Wage Gap Narrows

By MIRIAM JORDAN

June 13, 2008; Page A4

The building bust is turning out to be an unexpected boon for another industry, agriculture, as many Hispanic immigrants who lost construction jobs return to the fields in search of work.

In recent years, the ranks of farm workers had been thinned by a crackdown on illegal immigration coupled with the lure of better-paying construction jobs. That left farmers scrambling to find workers to harvest labor-intensive crops. Now, growers and labor contractors from Florida to California are reporting that former carpenters, dry wallers and painters are returning.

"We had seen the labor supply dwindling year after year," said Richard Quandt, president of the Grower-Shipper Association of Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo Counties. This year, "we are surprised to have a lot of workers." The area grows strawberries, greens, broccoli, grapes and other vegetables and fruits.

Dixon D P, Jones J P III, 1998, "My dinner with Derrida, or spatial analysis and poststructuralism do lunch" Environment and Planning A 30(2) 247 – 260

D P Dixon, J P Jones III

Received 6 February 1997; in revised form 20 June 1997

Abstract. This paper extends our previous efforts to (de)lineate contemporarydivisions between poststructuralist and spatial analytic, or scientific, approaches in geography. We adopt the format of a dialogue between a hypothetical spatial analyst (SA) and a poststructuralist (PS). Their exchange covers, among other items, the differing stances of these approaches to epistemology, ontology, research questions and methods, and the concept of 'context'. We also further develop the concept of the 'epistemology of the grid', which we define as the spatialization of categorical thought. We link this epistemology to two others, Cartesian perspectivalism and ocularcentrism, arguing that their realization in social practice is generative of social order.

Sheppard E, 2001, "Quantitative geography: representations, practices, and possibilities" Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 19(5) 535 - 554

Abstract. Representations of quantitative geography, both by practitioners and by others, have tended to associate quantification with empiricism, positivism, and the social and academic status quo. Qualitative geography, by contrast is represented as nonempiricist or postempiricist, sensitive to complexity, contextual, and capable of empowering nonmainstream academic approaches and social groups. Attempts to engage in debate between these positions rarely challenge this dualism, reproducing the representation of quantitative geography as logical positivism, and a dualism separating quantitative and qualitative geography. I argue that this dualism can be broken down, by deconstructing the underlying representation. I discuss why this representation came into existence and how it was stabilized; how close attention to the practices of quantitative geographers, and particularly to the evolution of these practices, reveals its inadequacies; and what new possibilities for quantitative practices emerge from this deconstruction. GIS, one of the recent manifestations around which representations of quantitative geography polarize, is used as a case study to illustrate these arguments. I pay particular attention to the question of the relevance of quantitative practices for an emancipatory human geography.

EVERYBLOCK

The easiest way to keep track of what's happening on your block, in your neighborhood and all over your city - like restaurant inspections in North Beach, crimes in the Loop or everything around 475 Kent Ave.

Special Issue on Transportation GIS

Volume 8, Issues 1-6
pp. 1-444 (February - December 2000)

Author: Rodrigue, Jean-Paul, 1967-
Title: The geography of transport systems / Jean-Paul Rodrigue, Claude Comtois, and Brian Slack.
Physical Description: ix, 284 p. : ill., maps ; 26 cm.
Publisher/ Date: London ; New York : Routledge, 2006.

Urban Geography, 2001, 22, 1, pp. 78–90.  

PROGRESS REPORT
DEFINING ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE AND ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM
Ryan Holifield
Department of Geography
University of Georgia

Distinguished geographer David Harvey joins host Harry Kreisler for a discussion of how the analytic tools of geography and Marxism can contribute to our understanding of the new imperialism. Series: "Conversations with History"

address search - information w/ geographical identifiers for a specific place. 

state, county, county subdivision, census tract, block group, block, and many many more

Journal of Urban History, Vol. 32, No. 6, 791-812 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/0096144205284400
© 2006 SAGE Publications

Neither Fight Nor Flight
Urban Synagogues in Postwar Philadelphia
Jordan Stanger-Ross

University of Victoria

This article uses case studies of two Philadelphia synagogues to argue that postwar cities remained places of opportunity for creative local institutions and that the geographic flexibility of synagogues did not necessarily entail flight from declining urban areas. After their North Philadelphia Jewish residential enclave dissipated, Mikveh Israel and Rodeph Shalom recast the meaning of community and membership to accommodate their dispersed congregations. Rather than remaining neighborhood synagogues, Mikveh Israel and Rodeph Shalom connected members dispersed across the metropolitan area who were committed to preserving their religious institutions at the center of the city. Postwar Jewish community at these two synagogues developed metropolitan contours.

Key Words: Jewish • synagogues • North Philadelphia • urban decline • geography

from wiki on - Psychogeography is "the study of specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organised or not, on the emotions and behaviour of individuals," according to Guy Debord's Introduction to a Critique of Urban Geography.